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About Chevron Corporation

Chevron has earned its stripes as the #2 integrated oil company in the US, behind Exxon Mobil. Its global operations explore for and produce oil and oil equivalents, refines them into various fuels and other end products, and sells them through gas stations, airport fuel depots, and industrial channels. Chevron boasts more than 12 billion barrels of proved reserves, produces about 3 million barrels of oil per day, and has refining capacity for nearly 1.6 million barrels per day. The company sells refined products branded under the Chevron, Texaco, and Caltex names through nearly 8,000 gas stations in the US and around 5,000 outside the US.

Operations

Chevron’s operations are grouped into two business segments: Downstream and Upstream.

Downstream operations (more than two-thirds of revenue) include the refining of crude oil into petroleum products; marketing oil and refined products; transporting products by pipeline, ship, truck, and rail; the making and marketing of commodity petrochemicals, plastics for industrial uses, and fuel and lubricant additives. Also reporting results as part of Downstream are transportation services (pipelines, LNG ships, etc.) and Chevon’s 50% partnership in Chevron Phillips Chemical, which produces polymers, aromatics, specialty chemicals, and plastics.

The Upstream segment (about a third of revenue) explores for, develops, and produces crude oil and natural gas. It liquefies, transports, and regasifies liquefied natural gas (LNG), transports crude oil by major international pipelines, and operates a gas-to-liquids plant. It also processes, transports, stores, and markets natural gas. The segment operates more than 45,000 productive oil and gas wells (net) worldwide. About 65% of its production volume comes from some 25 countries outside the US.

Chevron has an ownership in roughly 60,000 oil wells (the sum of its interests equates to roughly 40,000 fully owned wells) and more than 6,500 gas well (more than 4,000 net gas wells).

Geographic Reach

San Ramon, CA-headquartered Chevron has substantial Upstream operations in the Americas and Asia and a lesser presence in Africa, Europe, and Australia. Chevron's Upstream portfolio contains hundreds of assets, including LNG assets in Australia, legacy crude oil assets in Kazakhstan, unconventional assets (shale, oil sands) in the United States, Canada and Argentina, and deep-water assets in Nigeria, Angola and the U.S. Gulf of Mexico. Upstream sees about two-thirds of its revenue come from non-US sources.

The Downstream segment operates four refineries in the US, one in Thailand, and has interests in another three affiliated (non-owned) facilities. It sells product through nearly 13,000 gas stations and around 90 airports worldwide. Chevon’s chemical operations own or have joint-ventures in some 30 manufacturing plants and two R&D centers worldwide. Downstream revenue comes more from non-US sources than US ones.

All in all, the company generates about 45% of revenues domestically.

Sales and Marketing

Chevron’s customers include organizations such as heavy industry firms, utility companies, airlines, and car-driving consumers. The company sells crude oil, natural gas, and natural gas liquids from its producing operations under a variety of contractual arrangements. In addition, Chevron also makes third-party purchases and sales of crude oil, natural gas, and natural gas liquids in connection with its trading activities. The company markets an extensive line of lubricant and coolant products under product names such as Havoline, Delo, Meropa, Rando, Clarity, Taro, and Ursa in the US and Chevron, Texaco, and Caltex brands worldwide.

Financial Performance

In the last decade (2009-18), Chevron's sales fell nearly 50% from a peak in 2009 ($273 billion) to 2014, before a crash in the oil price dented revenue further to a low of $114 billion in 2016, its lowest in the 10-year period. By contrast, Chevron's profits held steady during 2008-13 period averaging $21 billion each year, but nosedived to a net loss in 2016.

Improving conditions in the oil and gas industry has lifted Chevron's financial performance in the years since, however, and in 2018 sales grew 18% to $158.9 billion. The increase related to higher refined and crude oil prices as well as higher volumes of crude oil and natural gas.

Net income grew 60% to $14.9 billion on the back of strong growth in the international upstream business, which grew thanks to higher crude oil and natural gas prices and higher gas volumes, partially offset by lower gains on asset sales and higher expenses. The US upstream business saw earnings fall due to the absence of the $3.33 billion boon that arose from the 2017 US Tax Cuts and Jobs Act recorded in the previous year.

With the oil and gas industry fully in recovery mode, Chevron is taking advantage of its improved financials to re-balance the books after its debt ballooned in 2015-16. The company radically scaled-back capital expenditures (from around $40 billion in 2013 to an average of $20 billion in 2016-18, while diverting its powerful cash generation to paying down long-term debt. Chevron's debt ratio fell from 24% in 2016 to 18% in 2018.

Much of the $20 billion capex earmarked for 2019 will be invested in exploration and production activities in the highly productive Permian Basin field, which spans west Texas and New Mexico and offers an exceptionally low break-even point. The relative ease of mining the field means Permian projects will be cash-generative within two years. However, Chevron ceded its leading position in the Permian Basin in 2019 when it was outbid by Occidental Petroleum for Anadarko, which owns some 660,000 acres in the region.

In the longer-term, Chevron is investing heavily in its Future Growth Project in the Tengiz oilfield in Kazakhstan. The depth of the field means production is difficult (particularly in comparison with the Permian Basin) but the size of it means Chevron will be pumping out oil for years. Chevron is investing $4.3 billion in the project to boost daily production by 260,000 barrels per day, while in 2018 it installed the first modular unit of a new processing plant.

Mergers and Acquisitions

In 2019 Chevron had an agreement to buy Anadarko Petroleum for $33 million. However, Occidental Petroleum swooped in with a $38 million offer, which Anadarko accepted. Chevron ended up with a $1 billion termination fee paid by Anadarko.

In mid-2019, Chevron acquired Pasadena Refining System and PRSI Trading from Petrobras America for $350 million. PRSI’s 466-acre complex in Pasadena, Texas, adds a second refinery to Chevron USA's Gulf Coast downstream business, which also includes a refinery in Pascagoula, Mississippi.

Company Background

Chevron's earliest predecessor was the Pacific Coast Oil Company of San Francisco incorporated in 1879. This was thirty years after the California gold rush, and a small firm began digging for a new product -- oil. The crude came from wildcatter Frederick Taylor's well located north of Los Angeles. In 1879 Taylor and other oilmen formed Pacific Coast Oil, attracting the attention of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil. The two competed fiercely until Standard took over Pacific Coast in 1900.

Another predecessor, the Texas Fuel Company, was founded in 1901 in Beaumont, Texas.

In 1911, the federal government broke up Standard Oil into several pieces as per the Sherman Act. One of those pieces, Standard Oil Co. (California), went on to become Chevron when in 1977, a major organizational change led to the formation of Chevron USA merging six US oil and has operations into one. That name stuck since.

In 1985, Gulf Oil merged with Chevron, and the modern brand got even more recognition as the company became the top refiner and marketer of oil and gas liquids in the US.